


i am no bird

by TheTeaIsAddictive



Category: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: F/M, Gen, Period-Typical Racism, lower-case pretentious bullshit warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7230514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTeaIsAddictive/pseuds/TheTeaIsAddictive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a thing to consider: black jane eyre</p>
            </blockquote>





	i am no bird

jane eyre whose aunt reed looked down on her father not only for being a poor minister, but a black man living free not long after the abolition of slavery. nine-year-old jane who is alienated from her cousins not just because she’s different, but because she’s ‘other’. jane who says to her cousin ‘you are like the roman emperors!’ because she’s seen the illustrations, she can guess what her father’s family were before he was in the clergy, and when she tastes the blood in her mouth from john’s violent attack she knows why it took so long for slavery to end. 

nineteen-year-old jane leaving both her job at lowood and all the childhood abuse that happened, unsure whether she was picked on because of her skin, not knowing what’s going to happen at thornfield; she was respected among lowood teachers, but she knows that she’ll have censure from other superiors because of her profession and her race. jane feeling not just surprised, but relieved that mrs. fairfax is so kind to her. jane being kind and loving beyond the call of duty to adele, because she knows what it’s like to feel like an outcast in a place you’re meant to call home.

jane, who grits her teeth every time rochester calls her a fairy, little goblin elf, something not of this world, because she knows what he’s doing and she knows he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. jane who struggles not to scream at blanche ingram insulting her profession and heritage almost to her face. jane who laughs about rochester dressing up as the gypsy woman, because at least he didn’t dress like her. 

she’s told about her uncle eyre in madeira, and wonders if there’s a woman her age, with her skin, doing backbreaking work instead of having a comfortable job. she loses herself in her art when her cousin shrieks too loudly, trying to reconcile their adult politeness with their childhood bigotry. 

black jane eyre, standing under the chestnut tree, saying ‘i am no bird, no net ensnares me’. jane staring rochester down for any sign of weakness when she says ‘i am a free human being with an independent will’, when she says they are equals. rochester, not even blinking, tells her about his love, and despite his displacement of her, she knows he’s telling the truth.  


jane eyre who sees poor mad bertha mason, and seeing that the woman with the wild hair is descended from the same kind of people as jane.

diana and mary teach her german, watch her sketch, carefully avoid talking about their uncle off in madeira. st. john teaches her the languages he’s learning, and in a careless moment tells her she’ll probably know them already. st. john says he couldn’t love her like he loves rosamond, ‘since she is so fair and beautiful, and you -’ he trails off before he says anything else. st. john rivers tells her she’s made for a missionary’s wife. she asks if it’s because of her personality or because the women there might see her as one of them. he doesn’t answer, and his silence is enough. 

jane who goes back to thornfield, to rochester, and accepts the fairy-talk for what it is. she goes back to him, and he aplogises for all he did. he tells her he never thought of her as anything less than his equal. he never brings bertha’s race up. when he sees their son, he smiles at jane and tells her he’s glad their son has her beauty.

st. john dies in india, but his last letter tells jane that they are equals, brother and sister in christ.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on my tumblr 21/11/2015


End file.
